The
Swedish composer Lars-Erik Larsson wrote his three numbered
string quartets between 1944 and 1975 and each one is shorter
than the last. The 1960s appear to have been a fallow period
but otherwise each decade is represented by a quartet.

Before
the first quartet we hear the Late Autumn Leaves,a
delightful sequence of six Intimate Miniatures from
1940. These were written during one of Larsson's most prolific
and rewarding periods. The music derives from a radio programme
in which excerpts from Senhöstblad by Ola Hansson
(1860-1925) were alternated with these brief string quartet
movements. The poems chart the progress of Autumn into Winter.
The music is warm-hearted, a series of smilingly intelligent
confidences - a tender dialogue between lovers. There's no
trace of the Schoenbergian experiments Larsson championed
in his 10 two-part pieces in 1932. The writing stands in
the romantic tradition established by Stenhammar's six quartets
but in even more delicate leafy autumn hues. This is beautiful
spare Nordic music; its coolness being balanced with a spring
in the step. The light melancholy of the earlier movements
becomes more sharply poignant in the final Adagio.

The First
Quartet is more obliquely expressed. While the medium
might well encourage it the writing here is evidently the
work of a precisian. It bristles with busy detail - not
always playing to the lyrical heart of the medium. There
are times when this sounds like a compact between Mozart
and Reger - at least in the first and third movements.
The Second Quartet yearns with a more candidly revealed
heart. It was dedicate to the composer Sten Broman. In
its meshing of gears and tiers it recalls Britten of the
same period (mid 1950s) but with some of Nielsen's objectivity
and a chilly Bergian overlay. Yet there is tenderness also
in the long wistful Andante Tranquillo before the
blitzingly active Britten-reminiscent Allegro Vivace.
The ten minute long three movement Third Quartet was
Larsson's last significant work. For all that it is sterner
than the Second it retains the propensities of the earlier
works but with a brighter candlepower. The singing heart
though is still present as we can hear from the witty and
touching end of the first movement.

The
Stenhammar Quartet play throughout with articulate communicative
devotion and emotional precision throughout. The presentation
is clean, thorough – all that you might wish.
Rob Barnett

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